


Princesses from the Edge of the Earth

by alice



Category: Spindle's End - McKinley
Genre: Fairy Tales, Family, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 17:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alice/pseuds/alice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Colin's idea of the princess doesn't look much like what he actually gets, but that's alright. His mother's idea of the princess, however, doesn't match what she told him when he was seven, and that may not be alright at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Princesses from the Edge of the Earth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kara](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Kara).



In my head she sat in her tower and embroidered until her fingers were bleeding. Then when she got bored of that she'd rip out all her work and sleep a little, and in the morning she'd maybe dance till her shoes wore out, or sing till her voice was raw, or cook thousands of sweetmeats, although Lord knows where she got them or what she cooked them in. Silver thimbles, maybe. Sometimes for kicks she'd let her hair grow out to fill the entire room so that for days she'd be swimming in it, and the people who came to bring her food would get lost in its tangle. Eventually she'd start to feel sorry for them and chop it all off, and gently free its prisoners, and use it as embroidery thread so that for a month all the cloth in the castle would be covered in gold.

I didn't tell Ter. He was sure she was wonderful, and he wanted her home. I mean, I wanted her home too, but I was prepared for some serious weirdness when it happened. Ter was prepared for the city tour he'd take her on and the conversations they'd have and how he'd convey, without sounding unmanly, that any mention of her name turned him into a total sap and that any time she needed him to he'd put swamp muck in the pillows of her enemies. (This was when we were seven-ish. When you're seven-ish and kind of spoiled, revenge is the ultimate gesture of affection.) I was pretty jealous of her for a while, which was dumb, but I was also seven-ish and kind of spoiled and I figured I deserved a monopoly on my brother's affection.

I did tell Mom, though. I didn't want to; having it either confirmed or denied would be horrible. Maybe I was trying to pull her attention away from Osmer by saying something she'd have to listen to, or maybe I just figured I'd better.

She said I wasn't right, but she said it in a funny way that made me think maybe I was right after all. "Oh honey," she said, "Rosie isn't – she's wonderful. She's very ordinary, but in a magical kind of a way. She likes – she likes watching dragonflies. Her eyes get so alive, I love watching her watch them." Then she'd made a face like she was going to cry, and I got out of there pretty quick because people aren't supposed to see their mothers cry.

So then I thought that maybe our sister was stupid. Mom talked about the dragonflies like they were some kind of Event of Deep Significance, but surely in eight years of knowing somebody you'd be able to find more significant things about them than that they watched dragonflies, especially if that person was your daughter. Unless watching dragonflies was all she ever did. It wasn't totally incongruous with my previous picture of her: the blank unconcerned eyes were the same.

I didn't tell Ter about that either, even though he was the one who was desperate for princess stories. Mom had never talked about her so directly before. I didn't even know if Ter knew which of her names she went by. I hoarded the information for its rarity and felt smug about knowing something he didn't.

Then when we were ten our parents told us where she really was or, rather, where she really wasn't. I don't think they were supposed to, because Mom said the fewer people who knew the safer she'd be, and Dad kept looking at Mom's friend Sigil like he expected her to attack him. But eventually they had to tell us, because they're our parents and she was our sister, and they figured ten was old enough to keep a secret. I was pretty miffed about Rosie and the dragonflies, but I wasn't going to call Mom out on lying to me when it had obviously hurt her so much. Instead I just sat around for a while and sulked. She wasn't a princess, really, mad or stupid or anything else. She was just some girl who didn't even know she was important.

Ter said that made him like her even more, since it meant she'd be more real, and court could use some real people because the far-off droning bores it seemed to love were really getting old. I said yeah, sure, but really I sort of wanted to punch him.

Then we met her, and she was as perfect as he'd said. Those first few days I could tell both of us felt like we were Osmer's age again: Ter wanted to follow her around and tell her stories, and I wanted to make a spectacle out of my jealousy. We didn't, of course. We were well-behaved and adult and had well-behaved adult conversations with her and with everyone else, and despite my mood I decided I liked her. I didn't love her the way Ter and Osmer did, but she was kind and easy to talk to and not at all saccharine like some other court girls I could name. And she'll make a good queen – better than Ter or I would make kings – so I didn't have to worry about that, at least.

I should have noticed it earlier. Rosie shadowed Peony the entire time we were at Woodwold, and we must have been introduced to her a dozen times by a dozen different people, most of whom looked slightly apologetic about her presence, as if to say, "We know you probably wish the princess had a best friend who isn't a horse leech and who doesn't make a hobby of staring blankly into space, but she doesn't, and that is that." But I wasn't paying attention then, because none of us were paying attention to anything except Peony and the sudden displacement of our own personal worlds.

Then after Pernicia and everything, once we were all back home and settling in to the way things were going to be and the letters from Rosie started pouring in – I should have noticed it then, too. Sometimes all Peony could talk about was her friend Rosie, and I liked hearing it because Rosie stories were always interesting. I figured it was her coping mechanism – her way of separating Peony-the-Princess from Peony-the-wainwright's-niece, or maybe of reminding herself that they were the same person.

And anyway, that month was kind of a blur. It seemed like all we were doing was sitting around being nice to each other, and asking nice non-difficult questions and finding nice ways of telling Peony things she should've been learning since she was four. (Not that she needed much telling – she's just somehow automatically good at things. But no matter how brilliant you are you still need a court education if you're going to be Queen.) After so much niceness you start to tune out. Rosie even visited once and I didn't notice. I didn't think anything about her except that she was pretty cool as far as horse leeches go.

It was the animals that clued me in. I mean, I'd known Rosie could talk to them, that was a recurring theme in Peony's stories. But I hadn't thought about her behavior in terms of that until Dawnie came to the castle. Dawnie is Sigil's niece, and she's here because her parents couldn't deal with her baby magic. Not that a building full of Important People is the best place to keep a person who can turn everyone in it into shrubbery if she feels like it, but Sigil insisted. The news that Sigil has a family at all threw everyone for a loop long enough for us to forget to protest; I think we all were imagining her as having just materialized out of thin air one day.

Dawnie wasn't so disruptive as I'd expected. Maybe I only think that because I wasn't in charge of her, but I saw a lot of her anyway because she somehow managed to be everywhere I was, and everywhere everyone else was besides. She didn't go in for turning people to shrubbery. Her big deal was beast speech. (I learned from eavesdropping – eavesdropping is a very important skill for a prince to have, thanks – that her parents considered this devilish, which maybe explains why no one knew about Sigil's sister.) At first she talked out loud to animals constantly, but over time she more and more often just sat and stared at them, and it occurred to me in a back-of-my-mind not-really-important kind of way that the reason Peony's friend stared into space so often was that she was talking to animals.

Then I remembered Mom's story about the dragonflies, and my idea of the princess as a person who sat and stared a lot. Then I remembered that the princess' name was supposed to be Rosie.

Except Mom made that up. That's what I told myself, but really I was already convinced. I don't know why it was so easy. It wasn't that I didn't feel like Peony belonged, or that I was eager to not believe she belonged. She did, and I wasn't. I liked her a lot by that point. But I think, for some reason, that realizing she wasn't my mother's daughter made me like her even more.

I don't know if I can explain that, but I'll try. It's like – my initial thought, I've already told you, on finding out that our sister was growing up God knows where with God knows who was, "Oh, but then she's just some girl." Being born a princess doesn't seem like enough if you're going to go and be raised at the edge of the earth with no idea who you are. But Peony wasn't born the princess. She just _is_ the princess. That seems more real to me, somehow, and even though I don't really know how it happened it makes me respect her even more than I did already.

But I can't tell her about it, because at the same time she's becoming the princess she's becoming someone who belongs with us, and I don't want to damage that. Maybe she'd feel better knowing someone knows, but she'd also feel less like our sister. And I can't tell anyone else in my family for the same reason.

I thought I could tell Mom, because I thought if she knew her daughter's name was Rosie surely she'd have noticed that Peony's name was Peony? That was the second thing I told myself when I was looking for reasons to object to my suspicion: if what Mom said was true then she'd know, and clearly she doesn't. But then I thought about it some more and I think maybe she did know, before Pernicia, because she always seemed to be staring over Peony's shoulder, and I didn't notice it then but I'm pretty sure what was just over Peony's shoulder that whole time was Rosie. I think either the sleep or whoever decided to go ahead and make Peony the full-time princess did something to Mom so she forgot. I guess that's the best thing, but it still sort of really sucks, doesn't it? I keep thinking about how I'd feel if she forgot I was her son. But even though I want Rosie to be her daughter I also want Peony to be her daughter. Maybe If she spends a lot more time with Peony before learning the truth that'll happen, but it doesn't seem like a very nice solution for any of them.

And then I thought – maybe I should tell Rosie? I don't know. That's what I want to do, but then I worried that maybe she's not the princess because she didn't want to have to deal with us. And even if she does I don't exactly have much to offer her. I know how to be her brother even less than I know how to be Peony's.

I'm telling you because if I told Rosie that'd be telling you anyway, but also because I guess you're the only one with the full story, and maybe that means you know what I should do. You took her and raised her and loved her. She belongs with you the way Peony hopefully can belong to us.

I hope me sending you this is alright. I know making small-talk with someone over two brunches a month apart doesn't really form a basis for sending them long soulful letters about your past, but I thought if I was going to ask your advice I had better give you all possible backstory, and I don't think I could do that in person or in the kind of formal letters princes are supposed to write.

If it turns out I'm completely crazy and none of this is true, please don't tell Rosie about it. Whatever the case, I'd like to hear from you. I hope you and yours are well. And I hope, even if you tell me not to tell, that someday I can, and that someday I can be Rosie's brother too.

-Colin


End file.
